A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about how much cardio you should do. So, I guess, the next logical question came out of that: how much strength training should you do? That’s what we’ll cover in this article.
What we won’t cover in this article is which exercises to do, how many reps, what tempo, etc. For that, you can either check out some of my other articles, or if you like, feel free to fill out this questionnaire to see if you qualify to work with us.
Original source: here.
But First…
With cardio it’s easier to answer the question of “how much?”, because it’s answered in minutes. Cardio is continuous activity, so an answer in minutes makes sense.
However, to answer the question of “how much strength training should you do?” is not possible to do in minutes. Why? Because two people might exercise for an hour. One of them might diligently works hard, do an exercise, move on to the next exercise, and s/he keeps moving for the whole hour. Another person might do 10 reps on an exercise, sit on the same machine, and look at their phone for 10 minutes, before doing another set of that exercise. In that same hour, trainee 1 got a lot more done than trainee 2.
That’s why you can’t answer the question of “how long should you lift weights each day?” in terms of time.
In sports science, the question of “how much” is answered with the total volume per session. How is total volume calculated?
Number of sets x number of reps x weight.
So to use an example, if you did 3 sets of 10 reps, at 100 pounds, your total volume for that exercise would be 3000 pounds. And let’s say that you did 10 exercises, for 3 sets of 10 reps each, at 100 pounds (to use easy numbers). Then, your total exercise volume would be 30,000 pounds for that workout. Capisce?
Now, with that out of the way, let’s discuss the factors that determine how much strength training you should do.
How Much Strength Training Should You Do?
Here are 5 factors that I consider when figuring out how often you should strength train a week. In no particular order:
Factor #1: Goal
Different goals necessitate different amounts of strength training. Somebody who wants to break a world record in strength would require different amounts of strength training than an endurance athlete.
So in order from least strength training, to most strength training, I would organize it like this:
Endurance athlete, in season: someone who might be a marathon runner, and they are in the phase of training, where weekly endurance training volume is very high (for example, someone is in the phase of training, when s/he is running over 60 km per week) needs less strength training. The goal of strength training for this person, at this time is to decrease muscle losses. It is not to maintain muscle, nor is it to increase muscle. Top priority is endurance, not strength. So strength training should be used to support endurance efforts.
Endurance athlete, not in season. When an endurance athlete is in the phase of training, when they are running/swimming/cycling lower mileages, they can increase their strength training. At this point, it makes sense to either maintain, or increase strength and muscle mass.
Fat loss. Someone training for fat loss should definitely be doing strength training, to minimize muscle losses (and prevent metabolism from slowing down), however, there is wide variability in how much needs to be done. So to really answer the question of “how often should you lift weights to lose weight”, I recommend reading my article on exercise for weight loss.
Muscle gain. For muscle gain, there only needs to be slightly more strength training than fat loss.
Bone strengthening. To strengthen bones, a higher minimal frequency is required than someone who is trying to lose fat or gain muscle.
Strength gain. I can hear you thinking: “wait. Isn’t muscle gain, and strength gain the same thing?” The answer is not entirely. You can gain strength without gaining size. This would be the goal for athletes who are bound by weight classes. You want to be as strong as possible, while staying as small as possible.
Now, let’s put some numbers to these:
Endurance athlete, in season: once per week, 4-10 exercises, 1-2 sets of 5-15 reps.
Endurance athlete, not in season: twice per week, 4-10 exercises, 2-4 sets, 5-15 reps.
Fat loss: 1-3 times per week, 8-12 exercises, 3-7 sets, 6-20 reps
Muscle gain: 2-5 times per week, 4-8 exercises, 3-10 sets, 3-12 reps
Bone strengthening: 3-4 times per week, 3-7 exercises, 5-12 reps, 3-8 sets
Strength gain: 3-12 times per week (yes, twice a day training sessions may be necessary), 2-6 exercises, 1-5 reps, 3-10 sets
Factor #2: Your Level
A beginner (someone brand new to strength training, or someone returning to strength training after more than a 3-6 month layoff) can do virtually anything and still make progress. Low frequency (1-2 times per week), high frequency (4-6 times per week), it doesn’t matter. Lots of variability here. By the way, if you’ve been going to the gym consistently for a while (even years), but haven’t been doing it correctly and/or progressively, for all intents and purposes, you’re still a beginner.
Intermediate trainees (6 months-2 years of training experience) seeking muscle gain should do strength training 3-4 times per week. Intermediate trainees going after different goals, would have a different frequency.
Advanced trainees (more than 2 years of training experience) seeking muscle gain should do strength training 2-4 times per week.
I know, you did a double take there. “Advanced trainees should have a lower frequency than intermediate trainees?” The answer is yes, because a person’s recovery capability can only improve 20-30%, whereas their strength can double or triple. So they are tapping deeper into their maximal potential.
And again, these are advanced trainees seeking muscle gain. Advanced trainees seeking strength gain may need higher frequencies. Then again, they may not.
Factor #3: Frequency
The higher the frequency, the lower the total volume per workout. Someone training twice per day, 6 days per week can do less each workout. Instead of doing 10 sets per exercise per workout, they may choose to do 6 sets, but do that twice per day.
From a strength and skill acquisition perspective, frequency is more important than volume. It’s better to do a little bit more frequently, than a lot infrequently. However, from a muscle gain perspective, the opposite is true.
But in “real world” scenarios, people don’t have unlimited time to train. So, as it comes to our clients, who are the average person, there’s not much leeway about frequency. So the lower the frequency, the higher the volume and intensity each session. If a client is strength training twice per week, they’ll be working pretty hard during those sessions (hard relative to their own capabilities). On a 0-10 scale of difficulty, each session might be a 7-8.
For someone training with high frequency, a difficulty of 4-6 is adequate, and more appropriate.
Factor #4: Intensity
From a sports science definition, “intensity” is how close you’re working to your maximal weight. So let’s say that you can lift 100 pounds one time, that would represent 100% intensity. If you lift 90 pounds 3 times, that’s 90% intensity. If you lift 40 pounds 50 times, that’s 40% intensity.
High intensity is very neurologically draining. What do I mean by “neurologically draining”? I mean that the demands are higher on the nervous system than on the muscles. With high intensity, you don’t feel your muscles burning (it doesn’t take long to lift a weight 1-5 times). You don’t get out of breath after you do it, but you do need to really psych yourself up mentally in preparation for a high intensity lift.
Since intensity is the most important variable when it comes to strength improvements (but not muscle mass improvements), the higher the intensity, the less strength training you should do. After all, if you do high intensity all the time, you run yourself into the ground, and eventually performance declines, and risk of injury rises.
Someone exercising at over 90% intensity should only do that about once every 7-12 days, depending on which exercise they are using.
For example, former powerlifting world champ, Mauro DiPasquale would only exercise once every 10 days. Yep, you read that right – world champ exercises only once every 10 days. But that’s a massive anomaly.
If your intensity is lower, you can exercise more. At about 60-80% intensity, you can do strength training 3-5 times per week.
At intensities below 60%, you can do it pretty much daily.
Factor #5: Personal Responsiveness
Different people vary in how responsive they are to strength training. Some are highly responsive, and others less so.
The more responsive you are, the less strength training you can get away with. For these folks, a single strength training session provides a very large stimulus for adaptation, when for other folks, the exact same workout provides a smaller stimulus.
If you’re less responsive, you should do more strength training.
How do you know your personal responsiveness to strength training?
There’s no hard and fast rules, but here are a few signs:
- If you can lift more weight than someone of equal size, age, gender, and experience level to you
- If you naturally bulk up very easily
- If your workout-to-workout improvements in the first 3 months are more than 5-10%. For example, in your first workout, you might have lifted 100 pounds. The very next workout, you lifted 105-110. The workout after that, you lifted 110-120 pounds, and so on.
Factor #6: Use of Isometrics
Isometrics are exercises where you prevent motion, rather than causing it. They are static exercises. I wrote more about isometrics here, here and here.
Anyways, since isometrics are static, you don’t incur nearly as much muscle damage as with ordinary exercises. Therefore, you don’t have as much to recover from.
So as a stimulus for strength improvements, they are very powerful. As a stimulus for muscle gain, they are quite weak.
Nonetheless, because less damage is done with isometrics, they can be done at higher frequencies than traditional exercises. As much as 3-6 times per week.
And as you can tell, despite there being 6 factors that determine the right strength training frequency, all those factors interact with each other. None of them is in isolation. But this is the best breakdown I can do. If you want more personal advice on how often you specifically should do strength training, as well as what exercises, how many reps, and more, feel free to see if you qualify to work with us, by filling out this questionnaire.
